


Cracking

by teamchaosprez



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Abuse, Abusive Relationships, Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, F/F, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Past Child Abuse, Physical Abuse, Self-Hatred, Sexual Coercion, Suicidal Thoughts, Underage Drinking, Verbal Abuse, Victim Blaming, jasper is abusive, lapis is the victim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-02
Updated: 2016-08-02
Packaged: 2018-07-28 20:03:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7654762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teamchaosprez/pseuds/teamchaosprez
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With some time to herself late at night, Lapis reflects on memories and how horrible her relationship seems to have gotten. Denial will only take her so far, and she finds herself considering taking drastic measures to free herself from the pain of her own daily life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cracking

**Author's Note:**

> I WORKED ON THIS MONSTER OF A ONE-SHOT...... FOR FOUR DAYS...........
> 
> anyway, in this, jasper is abusive and lapis is the victim. i'm sorry if you don't agree with that, but if you think it's the other way around, please don't read this. i don't need people doing something deliberately that they know will upset them and then leaving mean comments on something i worked so hard on.
> 
> thank you.

The key was exactly where it usually was, tucked away in the bottom of a flowerpot where Jasper’s parents were at least eighty percent sure that no teenagers would find it. Lapis doubted that they would even care if they knew that the key’s location was common knowledge, or that their eighteen year old daughter’s seventeen year old girlfriend was stealing some booze from the liquor cabinet. They sure had never said anything about it, and Lapis supposed that as long as nobody was calling the cops on her and getting her arrested for underage drinking everything was fine. She quickly unlocked the liquor cabinet, pulling out a bottle of rum and cradling it in one arm as if it were her baby.

Glancing into the bedroom, she found that her hulking brute of a girlfriend was still asleep. Perfect. She could sneak out and take a few hours to herself without many repercussions, assuming that Jasper didn’t wake up while she was gone. The teenager quietly crept past the kitchen, sneaking out of the door of the penthouse apartment and briskly walking up the stairs to reach the rooftop. She was tired and sore from the  _ other things _ that had happened that night, and something in her lower body burned with every step up every stair she took, but she was desperate for fresh air.

And fresh air she got as soon as she opened up the rooftop door. The city lights greeted her, stretching out into the horizon and making it feel like night never came despite it being just past midnight; Lapis breathed in deeply, cherishing the somewhat unclean city air before walking to the edge and sitting down, taking a deep swig of the alcoholic drink. Her goal for the night was to get drunk; maybe that would ease her thoughts and slow down her deteriorating mental state at least until Jasper forced her to wake up and get moving.

A sick feeling settled into her chest at the thought of her girlfriend, and she found herself chugging the rum at twice the speed she normally would; as a result, she found that her thoughts began to cloud far earlier than usual. Her relationship was toxic. She didn’t need some craggly old therapist with a PhD to tell her that much. Lapis was constantly being pressured into things she didn’t want to do, constantly having her ability to say yes or no taken away. It wasn’t all that uncommon for her to find herself with a black eye, either. It came as often as Jasper was angry.

This was what she got, though. Her parents had kicked her out of the house and had her emancipated and disowned the moment she turned sixteen and it was legal for her to live on her own. She had clung to Jasper when she said that her parents wouldn’t care if she stayed - tired of bumming out at her friends’ houses, stealing their food and then going right to the park to sleep on a bench, she had gotten addicted to the idea of a permanent place to live almost immediately. And that resulted in her being beaten up at every chance, emotionally manipulated until she was at Jasper’s mercy. When she wanted to leave, she remembered the cold of sleeping outside and stayed, no matter how bad it was.

She supposed it wasn’t fair for her to pin all the blame on her girlfriend, though. She was at fault in this horrifying mess that they called a relationship as well; she would take out her problems on Jasper in the form of yelling at her, apparently, she didn’t have the sense to leave, and sometimes she would get the sense that if she stood up for herself and stopped taking shit then everything would stop and would return a hit or two as a result. Those would always be the worst.

* * *

 

_ “Jasper, no, I’m not ready for this,” Lapis stammered nervously, backing up and glancing nervously at the older girl until she ran into the wall. Startled, she glanced back, and this appeared to be a mistake as Jasper simply grabbed her arm and pulled her close so that there was no way to break free. Her grip was uncomfortably tight, and no matter how much she tried to pull herself free she couldn’t. “Come on, you’re hurting me, please let me go. I’m not ready. I don’t want to.” _

_ “Listen, Lapis, I sit around and let you snap at me whenever you have a bad day. I’m constantly doing things for you, the least you could do is have a little fun with me for a few hours,” Jasper grinned as she spoke, roughly taking Lapis’ chin in one of her massive hands when she tried to look away and avoid eye contact. “Nobody else cares about you enough to let you be such a little bitch, do they? Nobody else would be willing to love you like this, would they?” _

_ Lapis swallowed thickly. She was shaking, and she was aware of that, but no matter how much she tried to plead and how much she squirmed Jasper just wouldn’t let her go. She was scared. No, scratch that, she was terrified. Most of the time she was dead inside, but then again, most of the time she didn’t have the star football player pinning her against the wall and pressuring her into sex. “I… I…” she struggled to get words out, squirming against the older girl in another futile attempt to get free. “I can’t, I have to go out with my cousin soon and my mom will get seriously pissed at me if I’m late getting home. Jasper, please let me go, I don’t want to. I’m not  _ ready.”

_ “Sure you’re ready!” the brute declared with a sort of sickening sweetness, squeezing Lapis’ cheeks before letting her face go and holding her up by the wrists instead. Plump lips gently rested against the side of her neck before sharp teeth dug into the olive skin there, and the younger teen gasped and squirmed. She was ashamed of how good it felt. Embarrassed, even. “I wouldn’t be asking you if you weren’t ready. Everything’s going to be fine. I’ll take care of you. Just say yes.” _

_ She wasn’t going to be left alone, whether she gave permission or not, and she was fairly certain that harm would come to her if she continued to refuse. So, cheeks burning, Lapis turned her gaze to carefully watch the sleazy grin on Jasper’s face, heart pumping so fast in her chest that every thump against her ribcage hurt; defeated, she slumped against the wall and stared at the ground, wanting to look at anything at all besides the burning yellow eyes of her girlfriend. She took a deep breath and nodded, squeaking in surprise and alarm when she was suddenly lifted bridal style and dumped onto the squeaky mattress in the middle of the room. _

_ “Good girl. Now, let’s get rid of these clothes…” _

* * *

 

She shuddered at the memory and, finding that her bottle of rum was empty, tossed the useless glass bottle across the street and watched as it shattered against the bricks of the opposite apartment building. Lapis curled in on herself slightly, resting her chin on her knees and staring blankly at the mostly empty street so far beneath her, counting the cars that passed by, as rare as they were at this hour. She couldn’t believe how stupid she’d been then for not fighting back.

She wasn’t nearly drunk enough for this, unfortunately. Her consumption of alcohol, which was becoming worryingly frequent for a girl who wasn’t even eighteen yet, was making her build up a difficulty as far as getting intoxicated went. That sucked. About six months ago, downing an entire bottle of rum in one sitting would’ve had her drunkenly screaming out the lyrics to Wizard of Oz songs as she danced around the rooftop. Would’ve made her feel just a little bit more alive and human. But this wasn’t six months ago, this was that very day, and Lapis was miserable to put it lightly.

She wished that she was dead. She wished that she had the guts to just jump off of this rooftop, make her physical body just as broken and bloodied and crumpled as her mental self often felt. She wanted to be dead, to make the pain finally stop and to quit making stupid decisions once and for all. She hated herself so thoroughly for getting into an abusive relationship and not breaking free the moment the hitting and the sexual assault started. Or for doing whatever shit she’d done to deserve all this.

When was the last time she hadn’t hated herself? It was long before any of this bullshit, she was sure, but she couldn’t exactly put her finger on when her mental downfall had started and when she had developed depression and whatever the fuck other issues she had. This whole relationship had only made it worse. Everything that had happened in the year she’d been dating Jasper made it worse. No, none of the issues she had were anything new, so she didn’t know why she kept lamenting about that.

Maybe because now she was pushing all her friends away. She hadn’t talked to anyone she actually cared about besides Jasper in well over a month, because none of them made any effort to understand. None of them got that she was staying with Jasper because she  _ needed _ to and all of this bullshit with the hitting and the assaulting was completely on Lapis because of how much she screwed up. She couldn’t reason with them, because all they ever did was tell her to break the relationship off. They didn’t get it - they didn’t understand how much she needed her girlfriend.

* * *

 

_ “Robyn Larissa Lazuli, this is an intervention.” _

_ “I thought I told you not to call me that,” Lapis scolded with a frown, glancing at her younger cousin Steven as he stood before her with his arms crossed and expression settled into a squint. There was a single chair in the room, presumably for her to sit in, and a small group of people was gathered before her with stern expressions on their faces - Peridot, Connie, Pearl, Amethyst, Garnet. “And I don’t need an intervention. I have no clue what even hinted at me maybe needing an intervention.” She glared at the younger teen, hands on her hips and a frown on her lips. _

_ “You  _ do _ need an intervention, because you still haven’t broken up with Jasper and she keeps treating you badly,” Steven responded in a tone that was almost comically stern for such a young kid, pushing Lapis back into the chair with surprising strength that made her flinch. A soft grunt of pain was given as she landed on some of the bruises on her lower back. “Just let us talk to you and hear you out, okay? Nobody’s going to force you to do anything, I promise.” _

_ Well, considering everything she’d been doing in the past few months had sort of been forced, actually having a choice in something sounded attractive. “You’re kind of forcing me to sit through this,” she grumbled, glancing off to the side and crossing her arms but leaning back in the chair nonetheless. She supposed she could humor her friends (were they even her friends?) for a little while. If nothing else, it might be good for a laugh. “Okay, okay, isn’t this supposed to all be just you guys guilt tripping me into getting professional help by describing how my behavior affects you or whatever? The idea of an intervention has always been kind of weird to me.” _

_ “Well, that was the original plan,” Pearl spoke up a little nervously, and Lapis couldn’t help but glare at the tall woman as she spoke, wringing her hands together. She’d always been a know it all, and the teenager was more than a little bitter towards her for even showing up. “But maybe that’s not a good idea, since you’re being emotionally manipulated and it might trigger you. So, how have you been feeling? Are you…  _ happy _ with Jasper?” _

_ Lapis scoffed at the accusation, slowly getting up from her chair. “Okay, first of all, I’m not being emotionally manipulated. I think. I’m staying because I  _ want _ to,” technically a lie, “and because she needs me. And I need  _ her. _ It’s not like I’m being forced to stay in this relationship.” As much as it felt like it sometimes, she genuinely believed that she could leave at any time, and chose not to. “Secondly, yes, of course I’m happy. She loves me, she’s just a little… rough.” The answer was automatic at this point. She wasn’t happy, she knew she wasn’t. She wouldn’t be moments away from relapsing into self harm at any given moment if she was. She wouldn’t be crying herself to sleep on the odd night she got to sleep alone if she was. “Fuck this, I’m leaving.” _

_ “No, you’re not, Lazuli!” Peridot was the next to speak up, quickly hurrying over and grabbing onto her wrist in order to prevent her from leaving. Lapis flinched at the contact, all too used to being grabbed like that for sex, and her friend immediately backed off. “We’re just trying to help you. Please just let us try, okay? You’re being treated badly. Jasper is awful to you.” _

_ “She is not!” Lapis argued with a snarl, taking a few more steps back. “If either of us if awful, it’s me. I’ve done bad things to hurt everyone I care about, I’m the one who refuses to break off the relationship, so if all this shit that’s going on is the fault of anyone, it’s me. I’m not a perfect little angel. Maybe I deserve to get roughed up a little.” She sniffed slightly, a bit embarrassed that she was getting emotional about this. “Stop trying to help me. I don’t think you understand at all.” _

_ “You’re right, we don’t understand, but that doesn’t mean we don’t want to help you.” Garnet spoke slowly, and Lapis squirmed a bit under the intense stare she was getting behind those shades. “Lapis, whether you want to blame yourself or not and whether this relationship is toxic for one or both of you, it isn’t healthy and it needs to be broken apart. Your mental health is deteriorating, whether you want to admit it or not, and it would be in your best interest to just leave. Cut Jasper off, never speak to her again. We’ll even talk to her for you if that’s what you need.” _

_ “What I   _ need _ is for my so called friends to stop butting their heads in my business!” she declared, turning her back on the gathered group and feeling a little guilty as she did so. They were just trying to help, even if they were doing it completely wrong and not trying to get a handle on the situation as she saw it. “Talk to me when you’re actually ready to be understanding. You don’t get it at all, you’re just making assumptions based on some shitty little bruises that show up on my skin occasionally.” _

_ And with that, she left the house, slamming the door behind her and storming down the stairs with her hands shoved in her pockets and the look of someone contemplating murder on her face. She was upset that other people thought they knew what was best for her, and that they tried to sway what she did with her life based on that. It made her feel worthless, like she couldn’t handle the world on her own, when she was perfectly aware that she was capable of far more than she let on. Right? _

_ So why did they find this even necessary? _

* * *

 

That was just another thing that she was to blame for. People tried to help her, and she shoved them away and wouldn’t let them talk to her any further. Only Steven had made an attempt to call and talk to her since that incident, and that was six months ago; she couldn’t blame Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, and Peridot for cutting her off like that, and she probably wouldn’t have cooperated if they made an attempt to talk to her, but she couldn’t stop feeling abandoned and left behind because they wouldn’t even  _ try. _ Maybe she really was just as awful as they all assumed she was.

She covered her face with her hands with a heavy sigh, staring through her fingers at the city far below. It took a moment for her to remove the hands, observing with a small frown the hand shaped bruises that had blossomed across her olive skin, standing out like a sore thumb amidst the long healed self harm scars left over from a couple of years before. She hadn’t relapsed since she was fifteen, but this wasn’t the first time she found herself wishing that she had something sharp to cut into her skin with. She wished that she hadn’t thrown the bottle. It wasn’t like she’d be hurting anybody if she relapsed now. Her own mother didn’t even question where she was most nights, she’d pushed away all her friends, and she seriously doubted that Jasper even gave a shit about what she did to herself. She was fucking awful. She hated herself, more than she had ever hated anything else in the known universe, and she was thoroughly convinced that she was the worst person she knew. Only an idiot would get herself into such a mean spirited relationship and not let anyone help.

Before all this, she was doing it for Steven. Living and fighting because she knew that if she just gave up and let herself die, her younger cousin would be saddened. She supposed she was still unconsciously doing that; Steven was the one that kept trying to call her, even if she never picked up or returned the calls, and she had a sneaking suspicion that he was the one who had organized his little parody of an intervention for her. He  _ cared _ about her, and she felt like he was the last one who did.

But she was so awful to him, so did it even matter? Maybe it would be better for Steven if her crumpled body was found on the pavement by the New York police department at one o’clock in the goddamn morning. Then he could stop worrying about her; he was a tough kid, he could live with the knowledge that she was dead. It wasn’t like it was something that he couldn’t bounce back from. The kid was a little overly emotional, but he was definitely tough, and the death of his shitty older cousin probably wouldn’t kill him or keep him down for very long.

If anything, he’d be happier in the long run. A broken laugh left the teenager as she curled back in on herself - wow, for someone who’d just thought to herself that she couldn’t end up committing suicide, she sure was leaning towards that outcome quite a bit. There was often the belief that if one kills themself, it would be a regrettable decision that hurts plenty of people, but… Lapis didn’t think that much of anything she did would affect anybody anymore. Except maybe Jasper. Maybe her abuser would be the only person to ever miss her or think about what might have happened if she didn’t do it.

Lapis immediately scowled at herself for calling her girlfriend her  _ abuser. _ No, while the things happening could certainly be described as  _ abusive _ by anybody that didn’t know better, the teenager was fairly certain that her relationship wasn’t bad or harmful or anything like that. That denial was all she had left, all she could really go by. The only thing that she could trust, considering her entire life had completely fallen apart around her and there was no longer really any point in living.

There was a part of her, of course, that remained reasonable and was still begging her to leave the apartment building, walk home and never, ever look back if she knew what was good for her. But that was the thing with Lapis; she  _ didn’t _ know what was good for her, not anymore. She doubted she ever had; or at least, that she had since she was twelve and her depression started developing. She’d always been told that she was so strong, so brave for continuing to fight and live when she just wanted to die. But she didn’t think she was strong or brave anymore. If she was all that, if she could fight against her own mind telling her to destroy herself, then why couldn’t she fight  **back** efficiently? She’d long given up trying, despite the fact that she had once made attempts to make some hits of her own.

No, Jasper wasn’t the only one that was making their relationship… the way it was. Lapis was completely convinced that she was the one to blame. She was the one who kept their relationship together, refused to let anybody break them up no matter how sensible they were above her. At one point she had thrown punches in retaliation and, once or twice, even got the first hit in, a desperate attempt to assert and gain dominance and get the message out that she was done taking Jasper’s shit. All those tries had failed miserably, of course, and at this point she was just sitting passively and taking the hits in the hopes that someday it would stop. But she still believed that all of this was her fault, for not breaking off the relationship when she had the opportunity to, for pushing her friends and family away and daring to try and stand up to the authority that now loomed over her at every turn. No, Jasper wasn’t the bad one, as was explained to her so often by the older girl. It was her.

* * *

 

_ “I’ve had enough!” she cried out, and before she was even fully aware of what she was doing her fist had connected with the block of concrete her girlfriend called a head. She was tired. She’d just woken up with another black eye and long series of bruises down her hips and thighs, and she was so, so tired of living this way - of searching her closet for things that would cover up bruises, of wearing long clothing in the middle of the summer because she still had bruises fading on her upper arms and didn’t want them to be questioned with the ones on her thighs. _

_ She missed crop tops. She missed shorts. Fuck, she missed clothes that made her feel comfortable in her own skin. She missed going days without being afraid of somebody seeing the bruises on her skin because she knew she wouldn’t be able to come up with a reasonable excuse for the fact that they were huge and shaped like hands. She missed going to school on a daily basis. She missed her old life, before she had gotten enough of a pain tolerance that she needed to look in the mirror to see that she was beaten up instead of being able to feel them with every move she made. _

_ Once she had gotten one punch in and Jasper didn’t even move to face her, she stepped in front of the larger girl with her arms crossed. Her girlfriend was completely focused on the television, and probably hadn’t even noticed she’d been hit. Figures. But Lapis wasn’t going to let her go that easily. Lapis was tired of being beaten up and she was going to get her point across without leaving the older girl completely unharmed. _

_ She just kept punching. Her hits connected with Jasper’s face, her chest, her sides, her arms. She was angry. Deep down somewhere, she knew that she was no better than the football player now, but she was completely beyond giving a shit. She wanted her life back. She wanted to belong to herself again, and she wanted to make a  _ point. _ Fuck knows she’d never be heard out if she took it easy. The stupid brute would just laugh at her and ignore her. _

_ “I’ve had enough,” she repeated as soon as she was satisfied, huffing and puffing from the effort of having tried to beat somebody twice her size up. “I’ve had enough. What we have isn’t healthy, and my friends have been offering to let me stay with them. I’m tired of getting beaten up, Jasper, I’m tired of hiding the evidence from everyone and I’m tired of dealing with  _ you. _ It’s over. We’re done.” _

_ Then there was silence. The teenager got the feeling that she had just made a horrible mistake as she watched amber eyes flit over to her and look her up and down.  “You aren’t going anywhere,” Jasper finally responded before turning her attention back to the TV, and Lapis wasn’t sure if she was more frustrated that she didn’t seem to care about anything or more discouraged by the words she spoke. She tried not to be either. “I’m the only one that can handle you, Lazuli. You talk about how you’re tired of getting beaten, and then you go right to beating me. You take up so much attention and time… and  _ money. _ You’re a handful and a hypocrite. You’ll be on the streets again in days.” _

_ Well, she couldn’t disagree with that. There was a reason that her friends hadn’t let her stay in their houses for more than a meal at a time, she was sure - even Peridot, who she had always considered to be her best friend, usually kicked her out before she could spend the night. There were promises that someday they’d move out to Steven’s family’s barn, but they never came to fruition - the blonde was busy with her schooling and had big dreams, the Hawaiian was a bit of a bum considering she was barely even make it to school with her lack of reliable transportation and her inability to get a decently paying part time job with her status as a homeless teenager. She was hopeless. She had nowhere to go, and she really couldn’t deny that. _

_ “You need me, Lazuli, and you need to keep taking advantage of my parents’ hospitality in letting you stay here. You really need to remember that. And if you try to hit me again, I’ll fucking break your arm.” With the threat spoken, Jasper rose from the couch and shoved Lapis so that she hit the wall before walking towards the door of the apartment. “Anyway, I’m gonna go down to the store to make sure we’re all set on pads and shit. Do you need anything like, I dunno, shampoo or whatever?” _

_ “No,” the younger girl responded miserably, and waited until her girlfriend had left before collapsing to the ground. This really was hopeless, wasn’t it? _

* * *

 

She was just as bad. She was just as bad and she fucking knew it. She was the one who stayed, who was completely dependent on Jasper and wouldn’t last long if she left. If she really thought about it,  _ she _ was the toxic one in their relationship, truthfully - she had nobody to blame but herself for her situation, as much as she wanted to try and pin that blame on her parents for kicking her out or on her friends for not being more supportive or on Jasper for being the one to throw the most hits.

She denied it so much of the time, but at some point she just needed to accept the truth. And the truth was that she was just a horrible person who had no chance at succeeding if she eventually toughened up and left. She’d be homeless, unable to get a job, drifting and without even any friends’ houses to turn to for meals because she had been an idiot and shut everyone out for trying to help her. A choked sob pushed past the teenager’s throat, which both surprised and scared her; she didn’t normally get emotional enough to cry, didn’t let herself and held them back when the tears came. But this time, she supposed she could let it all out, curling in on herself and letting a few tears trail down her cheeks.

Lapis wished that her phone would vibrate, whether it be for a text or a call. She wished that something would come around and be a distraction to her without making her go back downstairs and face her girlfriend. She was losing sleep that she knew she probably needed to endure the following day, but she didn’t care. Now that she had removed herself from the situation for a little while, the absolute last thing she wanted was to go back inside.

But she would need to eventually, right? Because that was the only place left she had to go. The only place where she would be guaranteed a warm place to sleep and food in the morning, anyway. She could always pack up her limited amount of possessions and leave the apartment building, but then she would be back to being that homeless teenager that sometimes an old lady would take pity on and leave food out for. She didn’t want either. Of course, there was a third option…

Again, Lapis turned her attention to the street below. A car passed by with speeds that were far too fast to be legal, and there were a couple of people taking care of some shady looking business next to the apartment building. She stared at the concrete fifteen floors below. A fall from this height would kill her for sure; there would be a very limited chance that she would live to see the inside of a hospital, which made the third option - jumping from here and to her death - a realistic goal. More endurable than the life she was living and the one she saw ahead of her.

There was no longer any reason to keep fighting. No longer anyone wanting to help her.

* * *

 

_ Sad as it was, the thing that tipped Lapis off to the fact that she was dreaming was the complete lack of markings across her olive skin tinted green by the lighting. The warped and twisted landscape in front of her, like an endless puddle in shades of green, was the next thing that let her know. Something she found disappointing, though, was the fact that the weary mental exhaustion that constantly held her down remained, right down to the cuffs that enveloped her thin hands and the chains that pulled. _

_ She didn’t know why she felt the need to keep pulling, to make sure that whatever it was on the other end stayed as far down as humanly possible. Maybe she was afraid that somebody else would get hurt if she let it run wild. Maybe she felt bound by some sort of honor, like she had made the conscious decision to do this and wanted to see it through. She didn’t know. But it was exhausting, even compared to the rest of the bullshit that she had been living through. _

_ “Lapis!” _

_ The familiar voice made her tense and turn, and before she even knew what was going on, Steven was running towards her. “Steven!” she found herself yelling, trying desperately to keep hold on the chains even with the new distraction her cousin faced her with. “Why do you keep coming back? I’ve got to hold us down… I’ve got to keep her…” Fuck if she even knew what she was referring to with him coming back, as she hadn’t seen him in months, but dream her seemed to know. _

_ “Lapis, I can help you, just tell me how!” her cousin begged, reaching out for her. She looked back, a little surprised by his genuine wish to help her, and in the moment she was distracted she was pulled forward by whatever it was underneath the green surface. Terrified, she pulled upwards despite her muscles screaming at her not to do so - whatever it was hiding there, she was certain that it would hurt her younger cousin, and she could  _ not _ allow that to happen. _

_ “I told you, no!” she started to say, only to be yanked back down into the deep green waters. She immediately felt the familiar sensation of fists and nails against her skin, and if she didn’t need to hold her breath in the water like substance she would have hissed in pain. What panicked her was the sight of a dark object moving up through the stuff and approaching her cousin; her panic made it difficult to identify the figure until she realized that there was only one person who would even think of trying to hurt the sweetest boy that had ever walked the Earth. _

_ Jasper. _

* * *

 

That dream had terrified her, and was the reason she hadn’t even texted back, she supposed. She was afraid that it was a premonition that if she continued talking to Steven, Jasper would hurt him. And she had been bitter towards her girlfriend since then; she had fought back with more ferocity than before, and every time she decided that maybe she would break the relationship apart and try to contact somebody who could help, the older girl had convinced her that she still had something to gain. That this was all just helping the both of them gain strength and not tearing them down; that it was giving Lapis a place to live and therefore couldn’t possibly be a bad thing.

It was bad. The part of Lapis that was still coherent enough to know that certainly was aware that absolutely nothing good had come from this shitty relationship, and that it was hurting her, maybe even the both of them. That part of her wanted to leave and never look back. But it was mostly overshadowed by the part of her that was afraid she would end up on the streets again, that she would just come running back in a few weeks and it would get even worse.

She hated that her life had turned out to be this way, and she wished she could go back in time and prevent herself from ever accepting Jasper’s offer to go out on a date. She wished she could turn back the clock and keep herself safe; the relationship had been nice at first, but since the first week or so of happiness and goodness everything had gone down the drain and turned into the horrific mess that she was in at the moment.

Lapis slowly rose to her feet and climbed onto the ledge of the roof before she even really knew what she was doing. She stared down at the road below once more, imagining what her body would look like crumpled and broken on the concrete; imagining what it would be like to be free of all the pain and suffering that her relationship and her own mind put her through. The only way to stop it all would be if she jumped and fell to her death fifteen floors down. It wasn’t like many people cared about her enough that they would be hurt by the decision, or would even attend her funeral.

With a deep sigh, she turned her attention upwards to the sky, disappointed when she remembered that the stars were smothered by light pollution. She remembered a trip with her friends out to the barn that she and Peridot intended to buy, when she could look up and see the sky stretching out for her, unmarred because the area around her completely lacked civilization with only a bunch of trees to call neighbors. She remembered laughter and Peridot swimming out into the small lake with her floatie because she wanted to be away from the noise. She remembered pointing out constellations to Steven with the help of Pearl and ignoring angry phone calls from her stressed out parents. She remembered feeling like herself again.

At the very least, she could have that memory to be the last thing she looked at. It would be better than recalling how she had spent that night.

* * *

 

_ Lapis hadn’t been doing anything to trigger it, really, unless one counted sitting on the bed and doing her homework as something worthy of her girlfriend getting angry. But, alas, out of nowhere she found the history book wrenched out of her lap and Jasper grabbing her, holding her up by one wrist. She probably would be more afraid if she wasn’t sadly used to this by now. _

_ “I need some stress relief,” the older girl grunted, tossing Lapis onto the bed so that she landed sprawled. With teeth clenched, she stood up, making an attempt to push her girlfriend back when she was hovered over. “Come on, Lazuli, it won’t take very long. You can get back to reading about a bunch of stuffy old white Western dudes later.” _

_ “My notes are due at the beginning of class tomorrow, and I am  _ not _ in the mood,” Lapis huffed in response, trying to duck under her girlfriend’s arm and roll off the bed only to be shoved back in place, her side harshly squeezed. She hissed at the pain that spread through her body due to the pressure put on her bruises - she should have figured that she was going to be coerced into this whether she liked it or not. “Jasper, let me go, I’m serious. I don’t want to have sex right now.” _

_ “I’m serious too, and I don’t give a fuck whether or not you’re in the mood. Regardless of whether you say yes or no, we’re doing this, but if you refuse to say yes I’m going to make this last for hours and then beat you so badly you won’t even have to worry about your notes being unfinished in the morning.” A large hand closed around her neck, and Lapis shuddered - she didn’t  _ want _ to submit, she was so incredibly tired of being forced into things like this and she just wanted to get her homework done. But the part of her that just wanted to survive urged her - strongly - to say okay. _

_ So despite wanting to save her grades so that she could possibly have a better future, the teenager sighed heavily and raised her hands over her head, spreading her legs and hoping that Jasper would be done with her quickly. Lapis closed her eyes, bracing herself for a long and rough ride… _

_ But she was startled when the hand around her throat suddenly tightened, completely cutting off her air supply completely as her shirt was ripped off and one of her breasts was harshly squeezed. The teenager squealed, her throat vibrating against the other girl’s throat as Jasper’s free hand roughly yanked down her jeans and underwear in one go, leaving them around her ankles and Lapis mostly bare and exposed. Confused and frightened, she opened her eyes to watch the older girl for a few moments. Despite the fact that she was still dry, two large fingers were jammed into her opening almost immediately. It hurt, it hurt, God, it felt like she was being ripped apart - she had been able to fit more than that before, but that was when she had been sufficiently aroused, not dry as a desert… _

_ But Jasper wasn’t going to stop. If anything, she’d be more turned on if Lapis expressed pain - so the teenager simply closed her eyes, tried to find her happy place as she was used. _

* * *

 

No, even if she were to leave - which she was still certain she was too stubborn to do - Jasper would never take no for an answer. She would never stop. Even if she let Lapis go, she would find some way to track down where she had nestled herself and cause pain to whoever she was staying with, or flat out kidnap her and return her to the apartment where she apparently belonged.

That settled it, then. Jumping was her only option. A little dizzied by the height, Lapis took a deep breath as she extended her arms out to her sides. Maybe if she imagined that she was sprouting wings and flying to freedom, this would be a little less scary. Seem a little less major, or at least a little less hopeless. Yes, she wasn’t falling to her death, she was going to a place where she would feel more alive. Where she would be safe from everything the mortal world had to throw at her.

Before she could lean forward and let herself go off the edge, though, she was cut off by the ukulele chords of a Vance Joy song emitting from her pocket. At first, the only thing that popped into her head was that she had been foolish for forgetting to mute her phone - but after a few seconds, she realized that it was weird that somebody was calling her at all, let alone so late at night. Curiosity dictated that she take a step off the balcony and pull her phone out of her pocket.

Glancing at the screen showed her a selfie that she had taken no less than two years ago, of her and Steven taken while on a family trip to Las Vegas. That was back before her parents kicked her out,  when she was only a week clean of self harm, and was the last time she could remember having a genuinely, a hundred percent good time. Nostalgia swelled up in her chest, and it took her a moment of breathing down tears to slide her finger over the screen and unlock it, holding the phone to her ear. “Hello?” she greeted cautiously, drumming her fingers along the railing.

“Lapis! You picked up!” It was Steven, and he sounded absolutely  _ delighted _ that she had answered the phone. She almost wanted to cry upon hearing his voice, but she took a deep breath and refrained, though she couldn’t keep herself from being emotional. “I’ve been trying to call you for months, I’m so happy to hear from you! Um, I got this really bad feeling that something might be going on with you. Something bad. So I decided to call and make sure you’re okay. Are you okay?”

Fuck, that was the first time anybody had asked if she was okay in a long, long time. Lapis completely lost her grip on remaining unemotional and let out a choked sob, and once that one was out, there was no holding back the hysterical tears that began rolling down her cheeks and the hyperventilating breaths pushing themselves in and out of her lungs. Her cousin spoke her name again, but seemed to be patient in letting her get it all out as she tried to gather herself so she could respond. “No,” she finally responded between sniffles as she managed to get her sobs under control; she saw no reason to lie to him about something like this, even if they hadn’t talked in a while. “Jesus, Steven, you just stopped me from jumping off the fucking roof. Literally.”

“Oh.” Silence followed for a few more moments; he seemed to be having trouble processing that, and she couldn’t blame him. “Lapis, what’s going on? It’s been months since we talked, and I’ve been really worried and it looks like I had good reason to. Do you… do you want to talk about it? Did Jasper do something to you to make you want to do that?”

The teenager sniffled and aggressively wiped the tears from her cheeks, sliding into a sitting position on the cement ground against the railing. “Well, she’s been beating me up more and more lately. And I was kind of thinking back on some stuff, and I realized that she’s been manipulating me a lot. And I felt really shitty because I feel like this is all my fault, like I did something wrong to deserve all this. I wanted to leave because it’s not good for me here, and it probably isn’t any good for her, either, because I guess I’m just as bad for staying when I should be leaving. So death seemed like the only option.”

“But it’s not!” The objection was expected, but came at such a volume that it made Lapis jump. “It’s not the only option, no matter how much you think it is! Everybody misses you, and we’d all be willing to take you in now that things are settling down and people are growing up. I overheard Mom and Dad talking earlier, and they said that since Dad got a really big music check we can afford to let you stay here if you really need it, too.” Steven seemed to hesitate, and when he spoke again his voice was so quiet and sad that it hurt Lapis’ heart to listen. “Please come home. I know you’re always too stubborn to, but please. You don’t deserve any of this, Lapis.”

Lapis sighed heavily and pulled her knees up to her chest. “Isn’t it past your bedtime? It’s almost one in the morning,” she finally responded, feeling tired and heavy, moreso than she had when she was about to jump. “I don’t know if I could walk all the way to your place right now, kiddo. I’m sore and I’m really tired.” She hated herself for coming up with more excuses to stay put, but it was all she knew how to do now. It was all she  _ could _ do.

“Oh, oh, Garnet’s over right now! She won’t mind if I wake her up to send her over to get you.” Steven seemed to be completely ignoring the comment about his bedtime, and even from the other end of the phone line Lapis could hear him slide off his bed and onto the floor. “Pack up all your bags and just wait for her right in front of the apartment building! I bet she remembers where it is!”

“Okay.” She sighed heavily; if it was just a little later in the day, she probably would have had a better handle on her emotions and claimed that she could handle everything, hung up the phone and went to bed next to Jasper like she did every night and wake up in the morning to face yet another long day. She supposed she ought to thank her lucky stars her cousin had called her when she did. First he saved her from suicide, and now he was saving her from staying in an abusive relationship.

She didn’t think she deserved to have someone so awesome in her family.

“I’ll see you in a little bit! I’m gonna make up the bed in the spare room for you! Bye!” She could feel Steven’s excitement radiating off of the phone up until he hung up, and she could almost imagine him sprinting down the hallway to rouse Garnet from her spot on the couch and then back down to make the room feel a little more like a home for her to come back to.

For the first time since cutting off all of her friends, Lapis Lazuli felt  _ loved. _

It was because of that feeling of being loved that she was able to walk back down the stairs, gather up her textbooks into her school backpack and what little amount of clothes she had laying around. The last thing she remembered was her history textbook, thrown to the side and forgotten when Jasper had interrupted her homework session earlier that night - and it wasn’t until she was stuffing that book in her backpack as silently as she could that she remembered she ought to leave her now ex girlfriend with some sort of explanation, if for no other reason than to explain that their relationship was  _ over. _

A note was scrawled in her messy handwriting and placed on the kitchen table before she pulled on her varsity swimming jacket, shifted her school backpack a little further up her back, and tucked her dufflebag under her arm. The teenager spared one last look back into the penthouse apartment, gently gnawing on her lower lip and wondering if she was making a mistake, before opening the door and leaving with no intention of returning, for any reason or because of any sort of argument.

She was only seventeen, and for the first time in a year she felt like she had her entire life ahead of her, waiting to be lived and waiting for her to catch up to it.


End file.
